I just started playing the game yesterday but I had been watching tons of streams and gameplay footage before deciding to install it. Prior to this weekend I hadn't seen anyone use this exploit in videos or streams so the people that had been using it were keeping it secret so they could continue to abuse it.
It is hard to say exactly but I would guess up until this weekend not many people were abusing this bug. Lets say 10% of this exploit usage happened from game launch until this weekend, and the other 90% happened just within the weekend. That doesn't seem to unrealistic... right? So for everyone who keeps bringing up how this has been going on since day 1; what exactly do you expect them to do about it? It is a situation of diminishing returns. They can rollback the game a few hours and resolve 90% of the exploiting, or they can rollback the game a few weeks just to resolve the other 10%. Granted all the numbers in that scenario are made up but the point still stands. I believe they made the right decision because rolling back the entire game just to deal with a few more people just doesn't seem reasonable. They even acknowledged that people have been doing this for longer than their rollback covers and they will try to trace those individuals back through their system logs to take the proper action. Now that they removed the bulk of the problem they can go back through and clean up the finer details.
If this was any kind of beta, they would have just wiped it and moved on. The fact they did not wipe it means it is NOT beta because they must preserve the legitimate, real money transactions that have occured. If they wiped those out, the game would have zero integrity and no one would ever spend a dime on it again.
Therefore, the fact they did not wipe after a gigantic screwup like this means this isn't beta and they must find another solution that is directly tired to preserving the real money transactions.
the fact they did't wipe the server or gave us a new server, means this game got ZERO INTEGRITY! everything you touch buy or sell or get is in some way corrupted on the 3 servers. so GG & HF!
Except when you ban someone from a Sub game it actually hurts them and has a sting to it, they have to buy another copy of the game to get a Account / CD Key and set up a new account / subscription to get up and running again.
Ban someone in a F2P game then go back to the website, make another free account and are back in the game doing exactly what they were doing 30 seconds before you banned them.
Even B2P games like GW2 are better off in that department as well, because again you still need to spend money to get back into the game after being banned.
F2P has too low of a barrier of entry, banning doesn't really do much of anything to people that want to cheat, exploit, hack, hurt, and destroy the game, it takes them about 30 seconds to setup a new account and get back into the game.
They really needed a wipe after this, it really is a shame.
There is something called IP-Ban, obviously you never heared of it..
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bazdolinMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
The most disappointing thing for me is that with all the experience of creating and working with MMOs at Perfect World, that this glitch still got into the game, took so long to be discovered and worst of all took so long for a solution to be reached and implemented. A failure at any one of those points would be understandable, to err is human after all. But for the safeguards I assume have been built into the game to fail at so many points strongly suggests a failure of design and leadership in their implementation.
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dgbatchelorMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 6Arc User
The whole "BETA" moniker is a joke. Just like them saying the goal is to eventually combine all the servers. There is no reason to combine the servers other than to adjust for an eventually shrinking population. These are all PR tools to avoid the usual negative spin that accompanies events like this exploit or server mergers.
If you bought a toaster that said "BETA" on it in a department store, what would your expectation be? Should it make toast? Should it toast bagel's? If it didn't work should the department store refund your money. Do we want toast so bad that we will pay for a broken toaster in the hopes that the manufacturer will eventually give us a working toaster? What if we end up with a microwave or a sandwich press instead...then what?
That's comparing apples to oranges. If a piece of hardware were defective, there would be a recall. They would give you a refund or fix the product as they are obliged. When software is broken, you just have to wait for a fix that they are obliged to give. The Beta phase of testing is to find these types of errors and fix them. They are fixing them as they can. They have proven that. Some errors are so ingrained into the game code that it will take weeks or months to completely iron out and test. When there is a beta version of software, assume there are flaws and expect them to pop up at the most inconvenient time. The reason they asked for players to play the game is to find these errors in the fastest way possible. Some errors can only be found when on a massive scale.
Now, TBH I'm for a complete wipe. I like playing the game enough that I don't mind playing more. Some folk have made it sound like they have made it their lives' work to get where they are in a VIDEO GAME and their massive sense of entitlement makes them demand recompense. I have spent real money on this game, but there are caveats with any piece of software, beta or not. I knew this when I gave them my money. Some people seem to have ignored the warnings that they stated in the EULA and on their website. Have you never lost a saved game due to a crash or corruption? Same problem only this is on a much larger scale. There is no easy fix and boiling it down to your analogy is not only overly simplistic but radically illogical.
As far as PR spin goes, sure, they have to make the best of a bad situation and this was how they chose to do it. You can't make everyone happy all the time and they picked a course they thought was best. Squeaky wheels being what they are, I'm sure that there will be a lot of unhappy people choosing to spew their vitriol all over these forums. This is despite the fact they should have seen it coming...
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kajiwhtMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 38
edited May 2013
I am missing 1000ZEN after the rollback (I used to buy AD at 450) before all hell went loose. Obviously I didnt know about the glitch else I wouldnt hav used my zen.
All I did is: I saw a guy shout in zone [THERES NO ZEN IN THE MARKET] so I decided to put 1000ZEN for 450k AD(450 a piece) and it sold really fast
I dont care if its 1000 ZEN or 450k AD either is fine I wasnt planning on spending that ZEN just did it coz I thought price was good
I love all the whining! 7 hours is too much, 7 hours isn't going to fix anything, this won't punish the culprits, this will punish all of us, WHY aren't you fixing what I say is the biggest problem(my personal favorite), OH NO! I will lose everything! What will happen to all the real money I spent????????? If all this has caused you sleepless nights then you should try out the new MMRPG "Realworld Therapy for digital fantasy games!" :rolleyes:
Not whining XD...peeps have a right to voice their opinion just as you have :-) For a lot of new peeps to mmo, something like this can be daunting. For the seasoned players we see this a lot with mmo, and it's our voice that can make the difference in getting game developers to work effectively in working out the kinks and putting out the best. Yes their goal is to make money, and to make money effectively it's also important they listen to the constructive feedback from their community :-)
I don't pay to win, in fact there are a lot of peep in games who spend RL money in game - we like the fantasy costumes, mounts, etc XD, but we also help a lot of peeps with time, etc. You will also be surprised who is behind the game face XD...I've met many CEOs, professionals, moms, husband and wife players, and peeps from all walks of life. Gaming for us is a way to chill from our busy RL regime, so please don't judge a books by its cover:-)
Many of us have had great experiences with mentors in game that we often give back to the gaming community.
soarianMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 6Arc User
edited May 2013
Christ. I played through all of the (kind of) annoying Chasm questline and went from 57 to 59.25. I'm not doing that again, and I also don't do alts. This is a complete cowpat of a response. Punish those guilty; not the rest of us. If the logs give it away, then go through them... not us!
I just started playing the game yesterday but I had been watching tons of streams and gameplay footage before deciding to install it. Prior to this weekend I hadn't seen anyone use this exploit in videos or streams so the people that had been using it were keeping it secret so they could continue to abuse it.
It is hard to say exactly but I would guess up until this weekend not many people were abusing this bug. Lets say 10% of this exploit usage happened from game launch until this weekend, and the other 90% happened just within the weekend. That doesn't seem to unrealistic... right? So for everyone who keeps bringing up how this has been going on since day 1; what exactly do you expect them to do about it? It is a situation of diminishing returns. They can rollback the game a few hours and resolve 90% of the exploiting, or they can rollback the game a few weeks just to resolve the other 10%. Granted all the numbers in that scenario are made up but the point still stands. I believe they made the right decision because rolling back the entire game just to deal with a few more people just doesn't seem reasonable. They even acknowledged that people have been doing this for longer than their rollback covers and they will try to trace those individuals back through their system logs to take the proper action. Now that they removed the bulk of the problem they can go back through and clean up the finer details.
OK lets say for arguments sake the 10% who did it before the 7 hour rewind moved the duped stuff to a mule account which in theory could have 50 char slots on it and each mule has 100 million Ad on it work out the figures on that and you will see how this could effect the whole integrity of the market.
With items changing hands like cats mounts etc all sold and traded for in game gold or even worse sold to gold selling sites it is a huge problem and would cost a lot of time effort and real life money for PWI to investigate every transaction on every account on every server. Then how about the ones who bought the items in good faith their accounts then come under scrutiny and could be banned for it and they did nothing wrong.
It is a very hard question for us to handle as a player base only PWI can resolve the issue and decide if they want this game to have Integrity from the onset of its life or not. They are in a bad place they are damned and berated if they dont and will be damned and berated if they do they are at this time in a no win situation.
You know i feel for them in this situation with all the work they have done so far with this game.
My issue is i got 2million id since i bought the founder pack i traded most of itfor zen a week after the game went into open beta,then i bough another 50us in zen,now i wonder if there would have been no exploit i might not have been forced to spend the 50us dollars to get a bag for my second account and some zen to buy some keys to unlock some of the chests mind you i still have another 38 to unlock.
I would like the 50us refunded and a new shard to start on with the 2million ad with none of those exploits left in the game.
There is something called IP-Ban, obviously you never heared of it..
There is something called dynamic IP's, obviously you have never heard of it... everyone these days can change their IP at the flick of a switch and if not they can usually call their ISP and have them reassign you a new one. IP bans cause more problems than they solve. For example if someone in a dorm was exploiting and they IP ban that person, it might also ban any other players of that game that live at that dorm.
they plug the hole they exploited remove all the corrupted AD's gold's Zen's and Items that this game suffer under thats what a wipe does a 7h rollback fix nothing but the last 7 hours of hectic puplic exploits, the puplic knew about the exploit for 2 days, and its been in the game for since close beta, nothing but a Wipe or a new server can fix this. that you try and defend it makes the rest of us think you came out of this unharmed and as one of the exploiters!
that fact that they wont fix the problem says it all, if they dont wipe or give us a new server, tell us that they as a company fail a 3rd time and dont have the balls to fix a problem they knew was there...
Pay attention please!!!! Nowhere in my post did I DEFEND either option.... I just pointed out, that whether they rollback, or wipe, (according to the origional posters rationale) they would just be back to doing it as soon as they made another account/character. unless the bug is fixed, neither way will be totally effective... and it does appear they are trying to fix the bug. Personaly I can see some merit, and drawbacks, to both ways, I was just asking the origional poster how wipe is better that rollback to stopping it... as it seemed he was saying.
I'm sure it's because after looking at the data, that's when ALL the extra money/transactions were showing up in the world economy. The mass amounts that mattered and had an effect on things, anyway? Didn't they say they were still looking into it? It's not over till' it's over.
So last night after you released your action plan to us I went to check my tickets.. low and behold the ticket I submitted about the auction house on 11 May 2013 was deleted and I couldnt access it with the number on the email I got. way to try to cover your tracks. Unfortunately for you I have all the copies of all the tickets I submitted about the subject and you can lie to all these people all you like. I just want my refund ASAP.
There have been plenty of reports of this exploit happening since the start of open beta and even some saying it was happening in closed. They need to fix the problem (exploits and bugs) and wipe.
I don't see how rolling back 7 Hours, banning accounts, and just continuing on like nothing happened solves anything.
Agreed, they need to fix the bug, and it appears they are doing that, however long it took. But by your origional post, you stated that banning does no good because they would just created new character/account and do it again, and I was wondering how a wipe would stop this, as it seemed you were saying it would.
I for one am glad this game is labeled 'Open Beta'. Why? Because it is that status which convinced me absolutely not to buy anything with real money. Beta is for finding bugs. This new practice of having real money transactions within BETAS is both astounding and not surprising at all, but given that betas are expected to be buggy, and given that real money transaction systems are in place within the beta, there may be potential, exploitable bugs within those systems too. Obviously we've just seen one occur. And of course there may be more. You can bet that the moment this one was busted up, there are people striving very hard to find more exploits. There are some people who live for that, just as there are some people whose primary hobby in life is coming up with destructive computer viruses. It's the nature of the world. Some people make beautiful things, some people smear themselves across beautiful things.
The one saving grace for all of us is that we have the choice to support the real money transaction model within betas, or NOT TO. Call me a 'freeloader' all you want. I'm playing a freely-offered beta game until it goes live, at which point I will likely support it with real money. That's once a majority of bugs are ironed out and things are relatively smooth. This isn't an indie game from an indie developer. They don't need my money to survive.
Beta game with real money transactions. Buyer beware.
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jukejointjezebelMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
we're speaking about a chinese company I think? So I'm going with running an operation on the side exploiting this to their own gain as well. people should just take their money back and show them that this is not tolerable.
*cough* Perfect World is based in the Bay Area.
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jukejointjezebelMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I discovered this exploit myself prior to all this nonsense. I tested it and made a ticket fot tech support detailing how it's done and what game functions it impacts, including the Zen market. What did I get for this? My account was banned. I am going to post on Redditt and any other forum I can find as I think it's unexcusable I was banned when I reported this exploit in good faith and nothing was done. The staff had my ticket and never responded. Now, as a paying member of the community, I was banned and lost the money I've legitimately spent on this title. I don't want a refund, but I do want my account unlocked.
Contact support and explain the situation. I doubt that they were reviewing tickets last night as they were trying to fix this, and you unfortunately got caught in the cross-fire. That really sucks. But give them a chance to fix it before you go screaming to Reddit.
*cough* *cough* Perfect World North America is owned by Perfect World LTD out of Beijing. If you're going to be condescending, please get your facts right.
I don't know. Im not really happy, but it is a beta. Most beta's I've played wipe your characters and do roll backs constantly. Everyone is over reacting, imo.
Q: I leveled up after 5:20 AM PDT -- what happens to that progress?
A: Unfortunately, in order to properly fix this exploit, that progress has, by necessity, been lost. We know how much that progress means to all Neverwinter players, though, so we're putting together a package to thank everyone for their support. We plan to distribute this towards the middle or end of this coming week, possibly on Friday 5/24.
my vote goes for the drow race for everyone along with the warlock and ranger classes!
the only real solution would have been a drastic rollback or wipe - none of these actions have been taken - and the ecoinomy might ave been damaged beyond normal ways of repairing it (eg ad-sinks). there jsut has to be like 5-10 accounts they dont get. with millions of ad on them.
Agreed, they need to fix the bug, and it appears they are doing that, however long it took. But by your origional post, you stated that banning does no good because they would just created new character/account and do it again, and I was wondering how a wipe would stop this, as it seemed you were saying it would.
Well if this has been going on since the last wipe, aka the start of open beta, then a 7 hour roll back is not going to fix all the damage already done by this ONE exploit never mind all the countless other exploits and bugs that are now floating around reddit and the internet as a whole.
I can't see why they can't wipe, they have records of everyone that purchased Zen from them and other packs and can have them start with all that again. Only thing lost is time, which is unfortunate but it is still open beta. I know they publicly said no more wipes, but these are extenuating circumstances, and I see how it is a necessary evil.
I would have said unforeseen circumstances instead of extenuating if these exploits and bugs were "new", but with all these reports of them being around since closed beta / the start of open beta, and even some people saying STO had similar problems rules out it being "unforeseen".
The most disappointing thing for me is that with all the experience of creating and working with MMOs at Perfect World, that this glitch still got into the game, took so long to be discovered and worst of all took so long for a solution to be reached and implemented. A failure at any one of those points would be understandable, to err is human after all. But for the safeguards I assume have been built into the game to fail at so many points strongly suggests a failure of design and leadership in their implementation.
The worst part is this was reported months ago and nothing was done to fix it. That demonstrates gross incompetence, well beyond the crappy internal testing they obviously are not doing. If it was a new exploit, maybe they get a pass, but the fact it was reported months ago and they did nothing about it points to systemic failures within in organization.
That does not bode well for the future of this game or other titles PW is developing. Very bad sign.
Can they just roll us forward? I'm tired after yesterday. I have a feeling there will be an XP boost of sorts in the thank you gift. I would be happier with an extra bag.
Comments
It is hard to say exactly but I would guess up until this weekend not many people were abusing this bug. Lets say 10% of this exploit usage happened from game launch until this weekend, and the other 90% happened just within the weekend. That doesn't seem to unrealistic... right? So for everyone who keeps bringing up how this has been going on since day 1; what exactly do you expect them to do about it? It is a situation of diminishing returns. They can rollback the game a few hours and resolve 90% of the exploiting, or they can rollback the game a few weeks just to resolve the other 10%. Granted all the numbers in that scenario are made up but the point still stands. I believe they made the right decision because rolling back the entire game just to deal with a few more people just doesn't seem reasonable. They even acknowledged that people have been doing this for longer than their rollback covers and they will try to trace those individuals back through their system logs to take the proper action. Now that they removed the bulk of the problem they can go back through and clean up the finer details.
the fact they did't wipe the server or gave us a new server, means this game got ZERO INTEGRITY! everything you touch buy or sell or get is in some way corrupted on the 3 servers. so GG & HF!
There is something called IP-Ban, obviously you never heared of it..
That's comparing apples to oranges. If a piece of hardware were defective, there would be a recall. They would give you a refund or fix the product as they are obliged. When software is broken, you just have to wait for a fix that they are obliged to give. The Beta phase of testing is to find these types of errors and fix them. They are fixing them as they can. They have proven that. Some errors are so ingrained into the game code that it will take weeks or months to completely iron out and test. When there is a beta version of software, assume there are flaws and expect them to pop up at the most inconvenient time. The reason they asked for players to play the game is to find these errors in the fastest way possible. Some errors can only be found when on a massive scale.
Now, TBH I'm for a complete wipe. I like playing the game enough that I don't mind playing more. Some folk have made it sound like they have made it their lives' work to get where they are in a VIDEO GAME and their massive sense of entitlement makes them demand recompense. I have spent real money on this game, but there are caveats with any piece of software, beta or not. I knew this when I gave them my money. Some people seem to have ignored the warnings that they stated in the EULA and on their website. Have you never lost a saved game due to a crash or corruption? Same problem only this is on a much larger scale. There is no easy fix and boiling it down to your analogy is not only overly simplistic but radically illogical.
As far as PR spin goes, sure, they have to make the best of a bad situation and this was how they chose to do it. You can't make everyone happy all the time and they picked a course they thought was best. Squeaky wheels being what they are, I'm sure that there will be a lot of unhappy people choosing to spew their vitriol all over these forums. This is despite the fact they should have seen it coming...
All I did is: I saw a guy shout in zone [THERES NO ZEN IN THE MARKET] so I decided to put 1000ZEN for 450k AD(450 a piece) and it sold really fast
I dont care if its 1000 ZEN or 450k AD either is fine I wasnt planning on spending that ZEN just did it coz I thought price was good
Anyone still searching for guilds you can check out HCG Hardcore Christian Gamers.
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Not whining XD...peeps have a right to voice their opinion just as you have :-) For a lot of new peeps to mmo, something like this can be daunting. For the seasoned players we see this a lot with mmo, and it's our voice that can make the difference in getting game developers to work effectively in working out the kinks and putting out the best. Yes their goal is to make money, and to make money effectively it's also important they listen to the constructive feedback from their community :-)
I don't pay to win, in fact there are a lot of peep in games who spend RL money in game - we like the fantasy costumes, mounts, etc XD, but we also help a lot of peeps with time, etc. You will also be surprised who is behind the game face XD...I've met many CEOs, professionals, moms, husband and wife players, and peeps from all walks of life. Gaming for us is a way to chill from our busy RL regime, so please don't judge a books by its cover:-)
Many of us have had great experiences with mentors in game that we often give back to the gaming community.
United Guild
https://www.facebook.com/groups/245990205544250/
OK lets say for arguments sake the 10% who did it before the 7 hour rewind moved the duped stuff to a mule account which in theory could have 50 char slots on it and each mule has 100 million Ad on it work out the figures on that and you will see how this could effect the whole integrity of the market.
With items changing hands like cats mounts etc all sold and traded for in game gold or even worse sold to gold selling sites it is a huge problem and would cost a lot of time effort and real life money for PWI to investigate every transaction on every account on every server. Then how about the ones who bought the items in good faith their accounts then come under scrutiny and could be banned for it and they did nothing wrong.
It is a very hard question for us to handle as a player base only PWI can resolve the issue and decide if they want this game to have Integrity from the onset of its life or not. They are in a bad place they are damned and berated if they dont and will be damned and berated if they do they are at this time in a no win situation.
You know i feel for them in this situation with all the work they have done so far with this game.
I would like the 50us refunded and a new shard to start on with the 2million ad with none of those exploits left in the game.
There is something called dynamic IP's, obviously you have never heard of it... everyone these days can change their IP at the flick of a switch and if not they can usually call their ISP and have them reassign you a new one. IP bans cause more problems than they solve. For example if someone in a dorm was exploiting and they IP ban that person, it might also ban any other players of that game that live at that dorm.
Pay attention please!!!! Nowhere in my post did I DEFEND either option.... I just pointed out, that whether they rollback, or wipe, (according to the origional posters rationale) they would just be back to doing it as soon as they made another account/character. unless the bug is fixed, neither way will be totally effective... and it does appear they are trying to fix the bug. Personaly I can see some merit, and drawbacks, to both ways, I was just asking the origional poster how wipe is better that rollback to stopping it... as it seemed he was saying.
Agreed, they need to fix the bug, and it appears they are doing that, however long it took. But by your origional post, you stated that banning does no good because they would just created new character/account and do it again, and I was wondering how a wipe would stop this, as it seemed you were saying it would.
The one saving grace for all of us is that we have the choice to support the real money transaction model within betas, or NOT TO. Call me a 'freeloader' all you want. I'm playing a freely-offered beta game until it goes live, at which point I will likely support it with real money. That's once a majority of bugs are ironed out and things are relatively smooth. This isn't an indie game from an indie developer. They don't need my money to survive.
Beta game with real money transactions. Buyer beware.
*cough* Perfect World is based in the Bay Area.
Contact support and explain the situation. I doubt that they were reviewing tickets last night as they were trying to fix this, and you unfortunately got caught in the cross-fire. That really sucks. But give them a chance to fix it before you go screaming to Reddit.
*cough* *cough* Perfect World North America is owned by Perfect World LTD out of Beijing. If you're going to be condescending, please get your facts right.
my vote goes for the drow race for everyone along with the warlock and ranger classes!
Well if this has been going on since the last wipe, aka the start of open beta, then a 7 hour roll back is not going to fix all the damage already done by this ONE exploit never mind all the countless other exploits and bugs that are now floating around reddit and the internet as a whole.
I can't see why they can't wipe, they have records of everyone that purchased Zen from them and other packs and can have them start with all that again. Only thing lost is time, which is unfortunate but it is still open beta. I know they publicly said no more wipes, but these are extenuating circumstances, and I see how it is a necessary evil.
I would have said unforeseen circumstances instead of extenuating if these exploits and bugs were "new", but with all these reports of them being around since closed beta / the start of open beta, and even some people saying STO had similar problems rules out it being "unforeseen".
http://www.twitter.com/PoIs0nMaN
http://www.facebook.com/PoIs0nMaN
http://www.youtube.com/PoIs0nMaN
http://steamcommunity.com/id/PoIsOnMaN
http://poisonman.wordpress.com/
The worst part is this was reported months ago and nothing was done to fix it. That demonstrates gross incompetence, well beyond the crappy internal testing they obviously are not doing. If it was a new exploit, maybe they get a pass, but the fact it was reported months ago and they did nothing about it points to systemic failures within in organization.
That does not bode well for the future of this game or other titles PW is developing. Very bad sign.
Still not a beta. They sold a product and have responsibilities. If it were a beta, they would wipe it so no wipe means no beta.